The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Monday said it will conduct a probe on the extensive T-Mobile network outage that impacted mobile phone customers across the United States.
“The T-Mobile network outage is unacceptable. The @FCC is launching an investigation. We’re demanding answers – and so are American consumers,” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said on Twitter.
Neville Ray, president of technology at T-Mobile, said on Twitter Monday that the telecom operators’ engineers were working to resolve a voice and data issue that has affected customers around the country.
He said later that data services were now available and some calls were completing. “Alternate services like WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage, Facetime etc. are available,” he added.
T-Mobile US has 86 million customers at the end of 2019. T-Mobile did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the outage.
T-Mobile US works with telecom network makers such as Ericsson and Nokia to support its mobile network across the United States. It does not work with China-based Huawei and ZTE at present.
In 2018, Ajit Pai backed the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint saying it would lead to improved 5G coverage in the United States and would bring much faster mobile broadband to rural Americans.
T-Mobile on April 1 officially completed its $23 billion purchase of smaller rival Sprint, solidifying its position as the No.3 wireless providers in the United States.
T-Mobile is in the process of enhancing its 5G network coverage. But the mobile operator is yet to reveal any growth from its 5G business despite bringing high-end smartphones to its 5G customers.
